1. Field of the Present Invention
The present invention is in the field of electronic systems and more particularly in the field of the design of high speed communication links in an electronic system.
2. History of Related Art
An integrated communication link refers to the hardware system interface between two components and is composed of integrated transmitter and receiver circuits directly connected to a communication channel. Each of the components can be a general purpose processor, a memory, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or another electronic device. A communication channel refers to the physical medium connecting a pair of components. Integrated communication links are found on an increasing number of integrated circuits. System-on-a-chip devices, for example, now frequently incorporate an on-board communication link enabling the device to communicate with system memory and other devices. Because of a growing number of high speed communication standards and applications, however, it is generally difficult to predict the exact application and environment in which such components will be used. Designing to a generalized specification, such as a “bathtub curve” type of specification indicating a projected bit error rate (BER) as a function of the sampling point or jitter margin, is generally insufficient to guarantee an acceptable BER in any particular implementation.
The difficulty of predicting customer's channels and applications is made worse by the reluctance of many customers to reveal the details of their system. Simultaneously, providers of communication chip solutions for such customers are equally reluctant to disclose the internal details of their communication links. Fortunately, customers, who have detailed knowledge of the particular application for a communication link, are not concerned so much with the internal design of a communication link as much as they are concerned with the link's performance characteristics within the customer's specific environment. Customers view the communication link as a black box that sits in the middle of their application. The link provider, on the other hand, is focused on the details of the link itself, and views the particular application as interesting only to the extent that it determines the limits of the link's performance. It would be desirable to implement a tool that recognized these distinct views of the communication link by enabling the customer to evaluate and optimize a communication link for a specific application and to explore system-level tradeoffs with various link configurations. It would be further desirable if the implemented tool preserved implementation details of the customer's channel and application as well as the confidentiality and flexibility of the provider's link design without substantially increasing the design cycle for the customer.